1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing device with a sorter having a plurality of bins, and is particularly preferable in a printing system in which a plurality of hosts share the printing device.
2. Description of the Related Art
One of the additional mechanisms for printing devices such as a printer, a copier, and a facsimile device is a sorter. The use of a sorter eliminates the need for sorting sheets by the operator in a printing of plural sets. Hereinafter, a printing using such a sorter is referred to as "a sort printing." A usual sorter has about 10 to 40 bins.
On the other hand, in an OA network wherein a plurality of computers share one printing device, a use mode is known in which bins of a sorter are used as discharge trays dedicated to specific receivers, respectively. For example, the bins are allocated to the computers (print request sources) which send image data. In this case, the operator which has instructed a printing through one of the computers is requested only to recover printed sheets (printed articles) which are discharged to the bin allocated to the computer. Alternatively, the bins may be used as mail boxes and allocated to distribution addresses (destinations) of printed articles. In the alternative, in place of the operator which has instructed the printing, a person at each distribution address recovers printed articles from the allocated bin. In both cases, in a printing in which printed sheets are discharged to preallocated bins (hereinafter, referred to as "a mail printing"), the computer gives print job data including any kind of information designating the discharge bin, to the printing device.
When a sorter is used not only in a mail printing as described above but also in a sort printing, the printing environment is further convenient.
In the case where the number of sorted sets is equal to or larger than the number of bins, however, bins which are allocated to specific receivers for the sake of a mail printing are inevitably used. When a certain user instructs a mail printing without knowing that the bin allocated to the user is used in a sort printing which is instructed by another user, printed articles of the sort printing and those of the mail printing are mixed with each other. This causes a fear that the printed articles are erroneously recovered. When the use of such bins is subsequently notified as disclosed in Japanese patent publication No. HEI18-2790, it is possible to prevent the printed articles from being erroneously recovered. However, there arises a problem in that the user which intends to perform a mail printing must wait until the printed articles of the sort printing are recovered.